U.S. Court Upholds Texas Law Banning Homosexual Acts
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NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals court Wednesday refused to reconsider its earlier ruling upholding Texas’ sodomy law, which forbids sexual intercourse among homosexuals.
“It is not the role or authority of this federal court to decide the morality of sexual conduct for the people of the state of Texas,” the court said in a five-page ruling.
The court ruled in August that the state had the authority to pass such laws.
The complex opinion referred to the “strong objection to homosexual conduct which has prevailed in Western culture for the past seven centuries.”
Opponents contend that the law makes criminals of the estimated 700,000 lesbians and male homosexuals in Texas.
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